Barack Obama: Dump These 8 Unsavory Allies

During the U.S. presidential campaign, challenger Mitt Romney famously accused
President Obama of having “thrown allies like Israel under the bus.” It
was an odd characterization of a policy that saw Obama make a brief,
abandoned effort to limit settlement expansion, no serious attempt to
stop the Jim Crow-like separate-and-unequal treatment of Palestinians in
Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank, and a determined push to
ensure that the International Criminal Court won’t get jurisdiction over
war crimes in Palestinian territory.

But plenty of governments deserve, if not being directed to the bus,
at least being shown the door when it comes to unconditional U.S.
support. So-called realists will offer the usual rationalizations for
ignoring that prescription. Their view of the national interest,
however, is outdated in a world where modern communications make it easy
for people to coalesce around grievances and perilous for governments
to ignore them. The Arab Spring showed nothing if not the folly of
relying on strongmen to bring stability.

In this new world, standing up for human rights reflects not only
America’s values but also its interests. It should be at the heart of
U.S. policy, not an option of convenience. If Obama wants to bolster his
legacy in his second term, he can and should get tough on some of the
United States’ most unsavory friends and allies. Here is a good start:

Afghanistan: As
the Pentagon bows out, it is counting on Afghan President Hamid Karzai
to see through the planned 2014 transition. But the Obama administration
hasn’t used its considerable leverage to dissuade Karzai from
undermining women’s rights, appointing an alleged torturer as
intelligence chief, tolerating rampant corruption, and blocking efforts
to hold accountable his warlord allies.

Uzbekistan: During
the 2005 uprising in the town of Andijan, President Islam Karimov
ordered troops to surround the demonstrators and shoot everyone in
sight. Hundreds were slaughtered. His government routinely tortures
dissidents and imprisons them for 15 or 20 years. Some have even been
boiled alive. Yet the Obama administration soft-pedals his brutality —
and waived restrictions on selling him military equipment — because
Uzbekistan provides an alternative to Pakistan for resupplying the
troops in Afghanistan. Especially as this rationale disappears, the
Faustian bargain should end.
 

Cambodia: In 28
years as prime minister, Hun Sen has presided over the killing of
countless political opponents while increasing his control of the army,
police, and courts. But the Obama administration has done little to
discourage him from building a one-party state, such as insisting that
exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy be allowed home without fear of
arrest, and has placed no conditions on increased military ties or aid.
Cambodia is where Obama should demonstrate that his Asian “pivot” isn’t a
competition with China for the loyalty of autocrats but a vision for
Asian democracy.

Rwanda: Led by
President Paul Kagame, the Rwandan government has long benefited from
Washington’s genocide guilt (Bill Clinton’s administration sat on its
hands during the 1994 massacre of more than half a million people) and
admiration for its progress rebuilding the country. But the Rwandan
Patriotic Front, which became the national army, itself murdered tens of
thousands of civilians in the 1990s; the government uses detention and
violence to shut down political opposition; and the military, despite
persistent government denials, has actively supported a succession of
rebel groups in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the
U.S. Congress’s insistence, the Obama administration has finally
suspended some military aid to Rwanda, but it continues to run political
interference for the government and downplay its crimes, most recently
its military support for the murderous M23 rebellion in eastern Congo.

Ethiopia: Washington
had a blind spot for growing repression under the late Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August. In return for Ethiopia’s help
fighting terrorism and battling al-Shabab militants in Somalia, the
Obama administration muffled its criticism of the security forces’ war
crimes and the government’s restrictions on civil society, detention of
journalists, violence against demonstrators, and pursuit of development
policies that penalize political opponents.
 

Saudi Arabia:
Yes, it has lots of oil. But the Saudis, who need cash to fuel their
welfare state, are going to sell it regardless of how Obama treats them.
Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary detention,
imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent,
mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini
monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.

Bahrain: Saudi
Arabia’s next-door neighbor is the most glaring exception to Obama’s
generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring demonstrators. The
ruling Al Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and arbitrary
detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi sensibilities
and fear of losing the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet base, the Obama
administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to
trump its concern for the rights of Bahrainis — a selectivity that
undermines its broader support for Arab freedom.

Mexico: The
country’s drug cartels have committed horrific crimes, but so have the
security forces that former President Felipe Calderón sent to combat
them. Obama routinely praised Calderón’s “great courage”
in fighting the cartels with nary a word about widespread military and
police abuses. Instead, the administration has sent some $2 billion to
support Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts, despite ample evidence of
human rights violations and security forces so corrupt that the Mexican
government has turned to its navy to crack down on the cartels.